Before history: pale women
gathered amber from sea-waves,
dreaming sticky forests
that lived upstream somewhere,
perhaps the Oder's source.
They did not think the river
was time. Women died
at predictable rates, traditional
deaths, leaving daughters
in the downstream current.

You were one of these. The soil
yielded to you glowing things,
unstable, like amber
which can burn even as stone.
You named the first
rare ghost after your torn
homeland. Your work
made the waves lap at you
until you went under.
Irene followed faithfully,
in time, swallowed by her shared desires.